Spurs fan in 2012 brawl charged in large cocaine case

Eloy Gonzalez, 41, was one of three Spurs fans whose fight was all over the Internet and national news.

A San Antonio man involved in a nationally televised brawl with Oklahoma City fans during a Spurs game last March is among a group of local residents indicted in a large cocaine-trafficking case that netted $400,000 during a raid earlier this week.

Federal agents allege that since 2010, the ring smuggled more than 400 kilos of cocaine to South Carolina, where the matter is being prosecuted, but the investigation has reached into South Texas to identify some of those suspected of being suppliers.

Among the accused is Eloy Gonzalez Jr., 41, one of three Spurs fans whose fight with Oklahoma City fans during a game here last year was all over the Internet, YouTube and national news.

Also charged is Jesse Avila, 44, a member of a local band, the Nancy Silva Project, and Roney Punoose Skaria, 41, a businessman who provided services to companies doing fracking in the Eagle Ford shale.

The three were arrested here this week in connection with a federal indictment in South Carolina. The document seeks a judgment of $10 million, the right's alleged profit.

On Wednesday, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents found $400,000 hidden in cereal boxes and popcorn buckets during a search of Skaria's home on the Northeast Side, according to testimony in federal court Friday in San Antonio.

During the hearing, lawyers for the men distanced their clients from the ring and argued that agents arrested the wrong people.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo ordered that Skaria and Gonzalez remain jailed without bond pending transfer to South Carolina, but set bond for Avila at $5,000 cash. The judge viewed Avila as an alleged drug courier and not an accused organizer like his two co-defendants.

DEA agent Jay Rajee testified that Skaria, whose parents still live in Myrtle Beach, S.C., appears in most of the agents' evidence, but that a cooperating witness said Gonzalez was an equal partner in the ring with Skaria. He acknowledged only 18 kilos were seized during the probe.

In conversations with a cooperating source, a man known as “Hitler” described the quality of his cocaine shipment, and Rajee said “Hitler” later was identified as Gonzalez.

Of the nine total suspects identified, agents also arrested Juan Arnaldo Perez-Iruegas in San Antonio this week, and two men in South Carolina. All face 10 years to life in prison, without parole, if convicted of conspiracy to traffic cocaine.